Login

Double Rainbow

by theworstwriter

Chapter 25: Chapter 23

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Scootaloo stood on shaking legs, stumbling about physically as well as temporally. She still didn’t quite have the hang of this, but she had all the time in the world to figure it out. She reached forward gingerly and placed one hoof on the crack in front of her. It was solid, cold, and unyielding. Like stone. Concentrating, she pushed her hoof to one side and the air around it rippled as the crack warmed. Reality pulled itself aside with the motion of her hoof and the crack was no longer a crack, but a wide triangular opening. One side of the curtain had been lifted, and she could see beyond.

On the other side there was a gray unicorn carrying a gray dragon toward a gray building. Scootaloo sighed and withdrew her hoof, letting the fabric fall back. So many amazing things came to her so easily now, but not the important ones. The tear in the curtain mended itself and the crack was no more. This was clearly the wrong approach, but that didn’t help her figure out the right one.

The little orange filly began to cry. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. Having a full and unimpeded range of motion was worthless if there was nothing to DO at any destination. She could go anywhere she wanted. She could go anyWHEN she wanted. When she got there, time would just stubbornly refuse to move forward again.

Losing your memory is sad. Losing your family is a tragedy. Losing both and then much later having it all come back – while at the same time gaining a super power – only to lose your whole world is unbearable.

Shuffling back to where this ordeal started, Scootaloo examined the books lying on the ground. She craned her neck in the direction of the library. It wasn’t quite possible to ask Twilight for help, but a library full of books was almost as good.

---------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash was screaming through the air at a speed that had long since ceased making any sense. She was pouring her all into this, and it didn’t matter one bit. As beautiful a sentiment as it might be, love can’t quite conquer all. No matter how fast she flew or how determined she was, Rainbow Dash would not be able to pierce through to the past with raw momentum and emotion. Everything stopped.

Scootaloo stepped forward from behind a gently flapping strip of spacetime and gazed up at her mother. She turned around, looking at the pitiful falling pegasus behind her, and frowned. She had tried so hard to find one that would work. One she thought she wouldn’t have to feel bad about ‘sacrificing’, even if that wasn’t exactly true. She had sobbed heavily for hours when she found one.

This Rainbow Dash was from a universe where everything had gone wrong. A world where she failed in front of the Wonderbolts. A reality where Applejack did not share her feelings. This sad, lonely Rainbow Dash had decided to end her life. Describing exactly the fate that would befall her is something that can’t be done, but it would not quite be death. In that way, it could almost be said she was giving her a second chance. Scootaloo apologized to her anyway, even knowing that frozen in her fall she couldn’t hear a word. It still felt wrong. She would never return to Ponyville and her friends would grieve deeply. In some ways, she really WOULD be gone.

Scootaloo didn’t care what the consequences for herself would be. She wasn’t trying to save herself from nonexistence. She was even fairly certain that if she ceased to be the damage would be minimal and Equestria would survive. But Twilight Sparkle had other plans, and Scootaloo was the only one who could stop her. She needed to ensure she would be.

A paradox really is a tricky thing, and this one was no exception. Rainbow Dash hadn’t flung herself back in time to stop herself from making a mistake… because she couldn’t. She did not alter the flow of events to keep Applejack alive, and Scootaloo was never born.

Yet here she was, frozen simultaneously at every point in time and space, trying to make certain that exactly what didn’t happen – exactly what COULDN’T happen – would happen.

Twilight’s secret to time travel was to apply the energy of two Dashes to a focal point, straining the resistance of the natural order to its breaking point and forcing a tunnel through. One Rainbow Dash couldn’t do that. But two could. Scootaloo brought the other Rainbow Dash through a fissure between the worlds. Time did not flow, and Dash did not fully phase through. The matter she was composed of was present, but intangible. It was out of place, vibrating at a frequency that was foreign to her surroundings.

Scootaloo apologized again before placing Dash so that she was occupying the same space as her other self. The two clumps of matter would fuse into one, and in a strange way the suicidal Dash would live on. Bolstered by the addition of herself, Dash would be able to do it. Where a single Rainbow had failed, a double rainbow would succeed.

Scootaloo trotted back past the curtain to the spatially local but temporally regressed Ponyville she had landed in. Where she had just been, color had started to return. Time resumed flowing as the paradox caused itself to be. One continuous loop that cannot be broken and yet cannot be fed back into itself and all around the impossible filly the world began to move once more. As colors sparkled back into their places, one extra patch of pastel purple began to shine.

An enormous smile spread across her face. Colors and motion and joy were real once more. There was still a threat to be dealt with, but she had all the time she could need and decided to take this moment to enjoy herself and revel in the simple pleasure of BEING. She didn’t notice the bright violet Möbius strip on her flank.

---------------------------------------------------

“THAT CANNOT BE. IF YOU PASSED THROUGH MY REALM I WOULD HAVE DETECTED YOUR PRESENCE.”

“Not if you were frozen and unaware.”

“YOU CANNOT HALT THE FLOW OF TIME IN A PLACE BEYOND IT. IT IS A COMPLETE IMPOSSIBILITY.”

“I’M a complete impossibility, or haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? You really need to pay more attention to what goes on around you. If you’d been watching closely, you could’ve even caught on. I made a pretty boneheaded mistake that should’ve grabbed your attention. I know it was foalish of me, but I missed it too much to leave it behind. Where and when do you think my scooter came from?”

Next Chapter: Chapter 24 Estimated time remaining: 2 Minutes
Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch